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Avant Garage: WRECKENROLL

by the SLEEPYH3ADS

supported by
Jerome Benigno Guinto
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Jerome Benigno Guinto SAVE me from Manila. Being a filipino and listening to this is inspiring!!! Favorite track: Save Me From Manila.
metamnemosyne
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Nico Nolasco
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dong0210
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Lyon Bajamundi
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jofernaxx
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weirdjustfriends
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1.
Happy Guilty 02:57
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2.
Bone Seducer 02:53
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3.
Life is a Killer 03:04
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4.
Save Me From Manila 03:59
lyrics
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In the land of cheap beer Flowing in the gutter And dead barbecues That keep the hungry alive Where the poor are fat With unemployment and hunger I'm quite lucky not to be like that As I study in a cheap school For a Diploma in Slavery To go abroad where crumbs are dollars And poverty can't reach me Canada, save me from Manila America, save me from Manila Arabia, save from Manila If I could reach ya... I dreamed I could At least live like them And my cheap, cheap name Will be on the passport I will someday be expensive And I'm gonna change the way I live No more hunger for dinner And drunkards and squatter dreamers On the rusted junk railroad horizon And then one day I was unlucky I turned out to be A refugee (!) 'Cause an illegal recruiter Got my body (sic) Now I'm living in a Third World somewhere But at least it's not worse Than living there (in Manila)... And do you know where I am? I'm in Cambodia! It saved me from Manila Cambodia saved me from Manila I have reached ya! (Help me, illegal recruiter Make me an airplane On fake paper I'm a carabao there A human being here In Cambodia Save me from Manila!)
5.
Crazy World 03:13
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6.
Department of Labor 01:59
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7.
Junk Junk Jeepney 02:54
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8.
Tarpaulin Teena 02:11
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9.
Your Beauty is My Problem 03:11
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10.
You Don't Care 02:04
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11.
Fifty-Teen 01:36
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12.
Metal Noodle 02:24
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13.
Stick with the Enemy 02:02
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about

Avant-Garage: Wreckenroll (2011) by The Sleepyheads is the culmination of the group's experimentation with "lo-fi" recording. Their third effort to date, the album was not only totally self-recorded-- even the "studio" they used was built by their own hands! Looking for a more Fifties-like sound, they stuck to the simple "garage-room" acoustics: just a shed-size room, thick plywoods, a couple of microphones, rudimentary instruments.
Most of the songs were done in one, two or three takes, recording fast, to capture the energetic immediacy and spontaneity of Rock 'n' Roll (or, as they say, "wreckenroll," a tongue-in-cheek term recalling musicologists who described Rock 'n' Roll early on as the sound of a "trainwreck"). No "treatments" were done to make the rough edges smooth. No bolstering of the drum, guitar or bass sound (to maximize intensity) were done either-- what you hear is what you get.
The Sleepyheads has always recorded this way, but in Avant-Garage Wreckenroll you can hear them perfecting the "imperfect" sound of "lo-fi": somehow this album just sounds right! From the jangle-and-thump of the standout track Save Me From Manila, to the fuzzy slowburn of the bluesy non-blues tune I Want To Live, to the shock-intro of the hopping-and-bopping Happy/Guilty, you just know the group has spent some time honing their primitive skills in that shed-like garage studio.
And it's not only the sound that one would notice in this album; it's also the songs. The certain character of a Sleepyheads song has been further defined here: more wit, more irony, more humor, not to mention melodies and playing that are as simple and punky as before. From the existentialism-turned-upside-down song Schopenhauer Soother (Bone Seducer), to the stumbling beats and loose notes of the love-song deconstruction tune Your Beauty (Is My Problem), to the ambigously mocking-and-praising stomper Fifty-Teen, to the Feelies-like drone-strumming and nerdy-becoming of Metal Noodle, these are songs that we've heard before from The Sleepyheads, but this time around we know that they actually know what they're singing about, owing to the intensity of the delivery.
The double-sided album cover features an artwork by the late, great conceptual artist Roberto Chabet (an early Sleepyheads fan who was also the brains behind the Cultural Center of the Philippines' 13 Artists awards), as "assembled and curated" by his proteges Gary Pastrana and MM Yu. Which is actually fitting for an album called Avant-Garage Wreckenroll: Sir Chabet was one of the first Filipino avant-gardists, and his innovative works "wrecked" many people's ideas of art. Just like The Sleepyheads could bring new vitality to their music with an album of strange songs, intentionally recorded "lo-fi," and sounding like a "trainwreck."

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released July 22, 2013

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the SLEEPYH3ADS Manila, Philippines

indie folk-punk trio- Jayvee (vox/drums), Erick (bass) & Rico (guitar)- are ripping up and tearing down the barriers of mainstream music with their tongue-in-cheek lyrics, gritty low-fi sound and freakishly fun performances, their infectious feel-good beats may induce uncontrollable fits of head bopping, toe tapping and jumping and jiving, the content of their music is certainly not lightweight. ... more

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